The blog Evolution News & Views just re-published a long essay written by Michael Behe in 2000 in which he responds to the philosophical objections of his critics. It's unfortunate, however, that Behe has never acknowledged his strongest philosophical critic, Purdue University philosopher Paul Draper. In 2002, Draper wrote a critique of Behe's book, Darwin's Black Box, in the journal Faith and Philosophy. (Click here for a link to the paper's record at PhilPapers.org.) Draper's paper did ma … [Read more...]

Chapter 5. The First Life: Natural Law or Divine Awe? In this chapter, G&T defend a design argument focused on the first life. They also present a variety of objections to scientism and materialism.I will provide a very brief summary of their points, before providing my critique.(i) Argument to Design of the First Life: G&T argue that the origin of the first life is evidence favoring theism over naturalism. They emphasize the following points: (1) all life, including … [Read more...]

Chapter 4. Divine Design G&T provide a brief introduction to what they call ‘the’ Teleological Argument, which they formulate as follows.1. Every design had a designer. 2. The universe has a highly complex design. 3. Therefore, the universe had a Designer. (95)Like the cosmological argument, this argument is deductively valid. Again, my plan is to provide a very brief summary of G&T’s defense of this argument, before providing some critical comments of my own.(i) … [Read more...]

This was apparently published last December, but I wasn't aware of it until today. Vincent Torley provides an interesting Intelligent Design perspective on C&C's slide presentation on the resurrection of Jesus.LINK … [Read more...]

At the risk of coming across as "too serious," "boring," or even 'heretical' among freethinkers, I want to comment on comparisons between pastafarianism (the belief that the Flying Spaghetti Monster (FSM) exists) and theism (the belief that God exists).For those of you who missed it, pastafarianism (P) was originally proposed as a parody of creationism and theistic versions of Intelligent Design (ID). The idea was that if intelligent design (ID) warrants equal time with evolution in public … [Read more...]